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The discovery of an apparently luminous (r ~ 20.5 mag) star-forming galaxy at z ~ 2.5 by Bentz & Osmer (2004) in the SDSS EDR Quasar Catalog (Schneider et al. 2002) was an unexpected surprise. Most known Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) have RAB ~ 23 mag,, which is much fainter than the limit of SDSS. A dedicated search through the SDSS First Data Release produced five additional objects, as well as the original EDR object, with redshifts 2.45 < z < 2.80 and 19.8 < mr < 20.5 (Bentz et al. 2004). These objects, by definition, have similar emission- and absorption-line properties to the LBG composite spectrum produced from 811 individual objects (Shapley et al. 2003, hereafter S03; see Figure 1), but there are slight differences: 1) the spectra are redder, 2) the lines are broader, and 3) the high ionization lines are stronger than the lower ionization lines.

WHAT ARE THESE OBJECTS?

POSSIBILITY 1: ULTRALUMINOUS LBGS – The brightest known galaxies in the Universe?

At over 4 mag brighter than an “L*” LBG, these objects are expected to have star formation rates (SFRs) of ~300-1000 Msun yr-1 using the continuum luminosity at λ1500Å as a proxy for star formation, without corrections for dust. The turbulence of such a system may be able to reproduce the differences observed in the spectra of the objects compared to the composite spectrum of S03. A rough estimate of the luminosity function of these objects is well above a Schecter function extrapolation of the LBG luminosity function determined by Adelberger & Steidel (2000, hereafter AS00; see Figure 2). Such objects would be the most luminous members of their class known, and would be extremely important to understanding the formation and evolution of star-forming galaxies at their peak epoch of z ~ 3.

POSSIBILITY 2: GRAVITATIONALLY-LENSED LBGS

This has already been found to be the case with the galaxy MS 1512-cB58, which is an “L*” LBG that has been brightened by a factor of 20 by a foreground cluster (Seitz et al. 1998). The lensing hypothesis would account for the space density being higher than predicted for objects this luminous, but does not seem to be borne out by the differences in the spectra of the objects when compared with the LBG composite of S03.

POSSIBILITY 3: UNUSUAL BAL QUASARS

The greater line widths in the spectra of the candidates when compared with the composite spectrum could be evidence for the AGN hypothesis, but the main argument against this hypothesis is the high level of similarity between the spectra of the objects and the LBG composite spectrum of S03. However, if they are determined to be dominated by AGN emission, these objects may represent a new class of BAL quasar that has not been previously seen.

FIGURE 2: Luminosity function of LBGs at z ~ 3. The circles are data points from AS00, and the solid curve shows their Schecter function fit. The open triangle is the additional data point based on the objects described in Bentz et al. 2004, with error bars showing the Poisson noise for six objects. The filled triangle shows the effect of changing from z = 2.55, the center of the Bentz et al. 2004 redshift bin, to z = 3, the typical redshift of the AS00 objects.

HST: Deep ACS and NICMOS imaging in order to further investigate the natures and morphologies of these objects and their environments, especially as pertains to the role of gravitational lensing (with R. Pogge and P. Osmer).

Chandra: X-ray imaging to search for hard X-ray sources within the objects and their surrounding environments, which would evidence AGN activity, as well as diffuse, soft X-ray emission from any active star-forming regions (with S. Mathur).